Romans 13 again...

As I see it, the main problem with the American response to 9/11 is that it is doing nothing at all to address the underlying problems. If we stay the course, we will have heaps of dead bodies abroad (some of them American) and a police state at home. And we will STILL not have security. I'll grant you the point that the relative peace we both enjoy is bought through threat of coercive punishment. Some historians have suggested that one of the conditions that made the first century so conducive to the spread of the Gospel was the Pax Romana. People were able to travel widely and freely with little danger. And Mussolini made the trains run on time. I'm neither a radical Anabaptist nor a Tolstoy-esque anarchist. But let's face it, there are crooked cops, there are racist cops, there are systemic injustices. "This is Earth, 2002." [wink] I've always benefitted from the system, but someone very close to me has been stopped several times for DWB -- Driving While Black. Having said that, I mean no disrespect at all to those men and women who have chosen to serve their country, their community, their family by (at times literally) placing their own lives on the line. And this brings us back to the Romans 13 passage which states that the governing authorities have been established by God. I've made a few comments on that here. So far in this thread you've been appealing to experience. Do you have a theological argument as well? Dirk